


Red, Magic, Kiss

by owlsshadows



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Crushes, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Pining Tanaka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 19:50:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15565164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlsshadows/pseuds/owlsshadows
Summary: Certain chemical reactions need a catalyst. If love really is a chemical reaction, the catalyst for Tanaka comes in the form of red lipstick.Written for EnnoTana Week 2018 - Day 1-2-3, and Day 4 as epilogue.





	Red, Magic, Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Connected loosely to [Strawberry Toffee](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6904309)

**Day 1:**  ☆ **_Red_** ☆

Spending time staring blankly into the void and thinking about his sexuality has never been consciously put on Tanaka’s agenda – he loved Shimizu, and that was that, set in stone, unwavering. Or so he thought, like, even just a moment ago.

Like, before he opened the door to the boy’s restroom on the second floor, where he was greeted by a slightly frustrated Ennoshita, tearing his gaudy pink wig off his head. Not that he was not aware that Class 4 is going with the maid and butler cross-dressing café theme. Oh, the whole team knew; they were picking on Ennoshita for weeks now. But no information acquired beforehand could ready him for the crisp clear edge of Ennoshita’s lips coated in a shade of vermillion red; and he could not name a moment in the glorious sixteen years of his life that he has ever felt so _floored_. As if inviting, the lips part, letting out an ever small sigh. Ennoshita wipes off the sweat from his forehead with his forearm, glancing at his made up face in the mirror with scornful eyes.

With his always sleepy lids covered in sparkle, his uneven eyeliner and thick mascara melting down under his eyes, his always orderly, soft hair sticking up in a sweaty wet mess freed from its suffering under the wig all day, he is the embodiment of exhaustion – yet his lips, marking a sharp contrast against the pale skin of his jaw and the pink flush of his cheek, are blooming in an ever vibrant red, brilliant, fierce, beautiful. Intoxicating.

The poor innocent youth who entered the restroom in good faith is now rendered into an impending existential crisis. As his entire world shakes around him, Tanaka needs to grab onto the doorframe for support.

“Oh, hey,” he hears Ennoshita’s voice slipping through those red lips. “Didn’t even notice you there. Zombie, huh? If I remember correctly, Class 4 did a haunted house, right? Tanaka? Ryuunosuke? Ryuu?”

As the lips move, his disturbing urge to kiss them grows and grows – and his innocent daydreams of Shimizu vanish in the light of new images popping up in his mind, hot and steamy and messy as hell, mostly including him taking a dive in Ennoshita’s sweaty hair, followed by thoughts that light fires under his skin, covering him in a blush from head to toe.

He barely registers Ennoshita’s words, not until he hears his own name, at last, in that least amused tone his friend uses whenever he does something stupid.

“Ryuu to Earth, have you really become a zombie now?” he asks, stepping closer. “You are way too red, were you wearing this costume all day in this heat?”

Tanaka blinks. Somehow even the deadpan of his friend seems affectionate now.

Maybe it really is the heat. Maybe…

“I love…” he slips, his common sense a mile behind his mouth.

“… Shimizu-senpai?” Ennoshita takes the wild guess, raising a brow and glancing at him with his glitter covered, half-mast eyes.

It’s the name that strikes him, hits him hard as if their manager materialized from thin air to deliver him a blow herself, with the corner of her notebook, to the top of his head.

“School festivals!” he exclaims, dramatically shaking the fake hand sewn onto his jacket. “They’re so much fun!”

“If you say so,” Ennoshita shrugs, grabbing his wig from the counter. “I’d like it better if I could wear the butler uniform.”

“Oh, Chikara,” Tanaka says, swinging his arm around his friend aloof, as if his heart was not threatening to jump out through his throat any moment now. “You don’t know how to have fun.”

It takes him all his tact and brains to finally be alone, leaving Ennoshita to a screeching, hyped-up Nishinoya, and a dead tired Kinoshita. Narita is the only one who gives him a _look_ as he wanders off whistling.

When the bonfire is lit, its smoke crawling up to the evening sky like a big, grey snake, the first chill finds Tanaka hid behind the trash containers, staring blankly into the void and thinking about just how kissable Ennoshita’s lips were back there.

If he could, he should delete that memory. For the sake of the team, their friendship, his sanity, and all reasons on Earth, he should – but he wouldn’t.

  
**Day 2:**  ☆ _**Magic** _ ☆ 

It must have been a spell, that _thing_ back at the school festival. It was a one-time thing, a surprised reaction, a trick of the mind due to the heat or the strangeness of makeup on Ennoshita’s lips – Tanaka decides after much thought.

It must have been witchcraft he got struck with back then – because no matter how he looks at Ennoshita now, running beside him up the hill, he can’t feel one strange tingle in his body.

His heart _doesn’t_ ache painfully as he hears his friend heaving for breath, his hands _don’t_ itch to reach out for him, and no, his mind is definitely _not_ filled with unsolicited thoughts on how nicely toned Ennoshita’s calves are.

He is _not_ _even a least_ _bit_ impressed by Ennoshita’s cheekbones in the setting sun – it must be the fault of light anyway, painting him like some chiseled god – and he is _not_ thinking that Ennoshita in his stretched out T-shirt looks just as dashing as models on the runway.

He is _not_ developing the most ridiculous crush of the century. _Not at all._

The problem is, no matter how hard he denies it, it’s not going away. The aftertaste of that surprise encounter lingers; it tickles his insides, knotting his stomach in weirdly shaped ribbons every time their eyes meet, every time he hears Ennoshita speaking, making him more and more concerned.

It’s a frightening condition, really, giving him heart palpitations as soon as morning corridor greetings, and accompanies him late into the afternoon, running up that hill behind school warming up. His knees are weak under him, footing unsure for the slope. His pace jumbles as his eyes wander off, following the way the fabric of Ennoshita’s T-shirt dips in around his waist, brain unleashed imagining how cradling him would feel… and, as it happens to people who don’t look where they step he steps on his own shoelaces, inevitably, falling before his demise –

– which, happening to be a teenage boy just within reach, grabs him and pulls him back on his feet.

“Careful, idiot,” Ennoshita grumbles.

As if stunned, Tanaka regains his right mind, common sense, or anything of its remains, the instinct to play it cool kicking in hard.

“Hah, pebbles,” he replies.

“That’s why I said, careful,” Ennoshita says. “We don’t want you injured, do we?”

“No, not at all.”

“Right. Even though I could get your position as starter…” the lingering threat in Ennoshita’s voice makes weird things to Tanaka’s body – rather than alarmed, he feels like a cat, a sudden urge to curl up to his friend’s side overtaking him for a second.

“You can’t wish for me to injure myself,” he says.

“I don’t.”

“Good. Honestly though, I kinda feel cursed lately.”

The knowing look Ennoshita gives him feels almost pitying.

All his misery flashes before Tanaka at once, from how he dropped his lunch in his lap when Ennoshita first walked into his vision after the school festival – he really shouldn’t have had this effect on him, not in his usual uniform with his stupidly good-boyish hairdo and his always sleepy, stoic expression

to how he slipped on the freshly mopped corridor when he tried to catch a glance of Ennoshita – he thought he heard his voice coming from the direction biology lab, and who would’ve thought that their indoor shoes were so slippery on wet floor

or how he got struck by Kageyama’s killer serve the other day when Ennoshita decided to sneeze just at the right moment – but who would’ve guessed that such a lovely sound existed

“I’m worried about you,” he hears Ennoshita’s voice, and as he looks up, his glance gets caught in the warmth of Ennoshita’s brown eyes – but really, it must be the orange of the setting sun playing tricks on him. “You seem to be spacing out a lot lately,” Ennoshita continues.

“Yeah, well. It must be a curse,” he shrugs, trying to laugh it off. “It must be that weird doll Noya found on the playground the other day…”

“Ryuunosuke,” Ennoshita calls, and Tanaka is well aware that his given name is quite the handful to be used as a scold on its own. He croaks, getting ready for another aloof comeback if Ennoshita keeps on pestering him – he really is just the victim of his circumstances, and that weird spell Ennoshita casted on him during the school festival – when two hands land on each side of his shoulders, giving him a reassuring shake. “You know you can always tell me if something’s up,” Ennoshita says, giving him one of his rare, honest smiles devoid of all sarcasm or irony. His sleepy lids open wide as he stares deep into Tanaka’s eyes – as if he were to read his soul through it – but the only thing paining Tanaka at the moment is the ache of his heart wishing to embrace his friend.

“I might be blessed, actually,” he mumbles. “I’m just not used to it yet.”

Ennoshita gives him another, more thorough and scrutinizing look.

“You sure you good?”

“Yes.”

“You get enough sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t read too many weird articles, hear me?”

“I don’t.”

“We both know you do. Like that one with the ducks? That was fucked up, man,” Ennoshita says.

“Okay, okay,” Tanaka eases up, slinging his own across the back of his friend as they continue their walk to the meeting point with the team. “No more weird stories.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Good. We don’t want the future ace to space off and break a leg, do we?”

“Do we?” Tanaka asks back, squinting at his friend suspiciously. “Even if you get to be a starter?”

“Don’t get injured on me.”

“Yessir.”

  
**Day 3:**  ☆ ** _Kiss_** ☆ 

Nishinoya has been acting strange lately, especially in his notorious attempts at picking on Tsukishima. Not that it would be out of character for him to tackle the blocker after a scored point or to steal his glasses to try them on for fun; it was all very much Nishinoya to do so – but there had to be a limit even to Nishinoya’s meddling and need of skinship, and since the moment they’ve started their joint summer camp with Nekoma and the other big city schools, Tanaka noticed no restraint in his best friend.

From stealing a towel from around the neck of Tsukishima to dry his face off with it, to pull on the blocker’s shirt to hide under it from Daichi’s scolding, Nishinoya has been bothering Tsukishima at all possible occasions.

“Don’t you find it weird?” Tanaka asks Ennoshita one morning.

“What?”

“That,” Tanaka points precisely at Nishinoya, who tries to force some more food into Tsukishima, while attempting to steal the tall first year’s glasses at the same time.

“Not really,” Ennoshita replies, stuffing his face with rice. “Look, since I’m not suicidal I wouldn’t try to meddle with Tsukishima too much, but we’re talking about Nishinoya here. There’s no such thing as weird when it comes to him.”

“Hm,” Tanaka huffs, digging into his rice. “Still. Stealing his towel is a bit too much…”

“Says the one who notoriously hogs all the blankets to himself,” Ennoshita remarks. “I’m not gonna sleep next to you next training camp.”

“Oh come on, don’t just attack me out of nowhere…!” Tanaka exclaims, but his voice gets lost in the war cry Nishinoya makes as he races across the room, a pair of glasses in hand, Tsukishima in tow, fast-walking. “That’s going way overboard.”

“Well, ‘til Tsukishima lets him,” Ennoshita shrugs, nudging him to turn back to his food. Tanaka reluctantly takes a bite of something chewy and green, but his thoughts wander, eyes following the absurd duo.

He could swear he heard Tsukishima giggle.

It stays on his mind for the rest of the day, gaze following the tall blocker and the tiny libero unconsciously. And he notices things: badly disguised glances, high fives that linger unnecessarily, pinkies that somehow get interlinked for short moments. And something builds in him, like a nasty stomach ache, planting budding pain under his ribs and sending him heartburns.

When after a nice play Nishinoya trots to Tsukishima and bops into the blocker’s side, barely hiding his intentions to rub his face against the taller boy’s chest, Tanaka tears his eyes away, only to find Ennoshita, sitting on a bench to the left.

His eyes find a moment of rest there, drinking in the familiar angle of his forehead, his nose, his lips. Ennoshita’s pale, slightly shiny skin is now pearlescent with sweat, his soft brown hair flattened and stuck against his scalp. The afternoon light glows against his skin, glides down his chin and follows his neck down to the edge of his T-shirt. His Adam’s apple bobs as he drinks. Tanaka is way too far, yet he reckons to hear the soft pop as Ennoshita’s lips separate from the water bottle.

“Oy, Ryuu,” Nishinoya tackles him suddenly, impact melting his vision into blurry shades of pink, black, brown, yellow. “You ready to team up with me and Suga-san tonight?”

“Setting practice?” Tanaka asks. As he looks at Nishinoya’s happy face, so content with the world, the ugly thing in his stomach churns.

How unfair, he thinks.

Noya has always been the braver, the more daring – it earned him a slap from Shimizu once, and the respect of Tanaka for the rest of his life – but for this simple difference in their traits to make Tanaka so frustrated one day, that deep within his urge him to keep his distance from his best friend grows every minute…

Unfair.

“Sure thing,” he replies, patting Nishinoya on the shoulder. He is not to give in to some monster feeding off of his cowardice and let it destroy his friendships. Not without a fight.

“Cool!” the libero clings to him shortly. “All day you seemed so down, I wouldn’t have known what to do if you said no.”

“I would never say no,” he says, hushing the pain in his stomach.

“That’s my Ryuu!” Nishinoya exclaims, turning towards the nearest teammates.

Yamaguchi nods, slightly startled by his vigor – Tsukishima on the other hand laughs, eyes lingering on Nishinoya’s face just a moment longer than it would be natural.

Tanaka wonders whether his senses sharpened, noticing it all that seemingly no one else can see, the only reason he finds not making him any happy.

 _People see what they want to see_.

That, Ennoshita told him yesterday night – it was a lengthy anecdote about how each movie leaves a different feeling in everyone, and so if you ask a group of 10 to describe the same movie, and show the answers to someone, it’s 10 different stories you get – and while he did find it interesting, it was late at night, and half of the thing he has already forgotten. This lone sentence stuck in his head, along with the fired up eyes of his friend.

He notices Noya teasing Tsukishima, because he wants to do the same. He craves Ennoshita’s attention – and oh, he would steal towels, pick fights, launch himself at him at full speed – if only he had the courage to do so. Stealing his blanket at night sadly doesn’t count; he does it after he fought off his anxiety and managed to fall asleep, deep unconscious.

If only he could grab his hands once, that would be ideal. Even if their palms are sweaty, or covered in dirt after a round of flying falls.

“You wander around like someone lost.”

If only –

– he had the courage.

“Chikara.”

“Ryuunosuke.”

“You abuse my name way too much.”

“Where to?” Ennoshita asks, gallantly ignoring Tanaka’s whining.

“Ah. The… gym. I meet up with Suga-san and Noya.”

“I would’ve thought you were power walking around the dormitory. You passed this spot three times already.”

Of course he did. He was busy gathering courage to invite Ennoshita to their extra practice – not that he would ever admit it.

“If you are done mocking me, you could maybe join me!” he says. Frustrated by his own cowardice, he lets the invitation slip – not quite how he planned, and definitely not in a charming way.

“Ok,” Ennoshita says simply, sinking his hands into his short’s pockets and stepping out the dormitory’s door. “After you.”

Baffled, Tanaka obeys, walking ahead. He feels uncomfortable to begin with, being so unsuccessful at wooing his friend, but the feeling becomes unbearable as Ennoshita trails behind, never quite lining up beside him. Out of his sight, it is up to his hearing to deliver him the rhythmic thuds of Ennoshita’s steps and his imagination to fill in the gaps – the latter not the best friend of teenage boys with impractical crushes.

Hot wind blows in his face, and he wonders if Ennoshita smells him.

He wonders if he smells bad, actually.

On the court, he is fearless; Ukai even called him the pillar of Karasuno for his endless mental fortitude once – yet, when it comes to Ennoshita, he curls in on himself. Insecurities bloom in his heart, nurtured by every attempt he fails to call out to his friend, to grab onto him, to speak.

Once Ennoshita comes in the picture, he becomes a coward. He becomes frail. Vulnerable. Inexperienced.

He turns into someone who is jealous at their best friend’s happiness.

Tanaka forces his train of thought to stop, halting his steps along the way.

“It’s not like I want this…” he grumbles beneath his breath.

There’s a breeze against the nape of his neck, it smells like shampoo and coke –

“You don’t want what?” Ennoshita asks, lips dangerously close to Tanaka’s ears. “Sorry,” he steps away to the side, raising his hand in his defense. “You stopped so suddenly, I nearly walked into you. So… care to share what’s bothering you?”

The idea to stop so abruptly in front of Ennoshita that he walks into him one day barges into Tanaka’s mind like a storm, washing away all the frustration he felt while walking ahead of him.

“I was just thinking…” he starts, collecting his thoughts.

He can’t admit that he was thinking about Ennoshita. Let alone his feelings.

It would be selfish, forcing his feelings on his friend. It would be so tactless, so brash to confess, and he has so much at stake – he could destroy it all.

He values their friendship more than anything else, and if he has to decide between the feelings he has and the possibility to lose it all…

He is a coward like that.

But sometimes… just sometimes, he wishes to take his chances. He wishes to be cool and in control – to be charming beyond belief, to make Ennoshita fall head over heels in love with him.

He wishes he would have the courage to be daring. He imagines teasing Ennoshita – and even though he knows he would never win an oral argument; he could always poke at his friend’s sides. Ennoshita’s ticklish after all; if he could elicit laughter, he won the argument without the need for a witty comeback.

“… about Noya and Tsukishima,” he shrugs.

Ennoshita takes a sharp inhale. Something darkens in his eyes, and somehow Tanaka feels a distance between them, even as Ennoshita places a hand on his shoulder.

“They’re gays, Tanaka.”

“I know.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And? You good?”

“What?”

“You were bothered by them before,” Ennoshita continues, somewhat guarded. “If… if it disgusts you, or you feel concerned…”

“No, no!” Tanaka shakes his head. Why did he start this conversation again? How is he coming out of this alive?

“You can be honest with me you know.”

“I’m just…”

Jealous.

In love.

Hopeless.

He places a hand over Ennoshita’s on his shoulder, dragging it down between them. Heart throbbing in his throat, drumming in his ears and pulsing through his veins, he trembles.

Hand holding accomplished. Not quite like planned. Not even in a meaningful way. It’s just a coward’s play, something along that fine line he can still dance back from to safe terrain.

“I was surprised,” he says, finding that the words come much easier if he stares blankly at their interlinked hands. “I thought that this was something rare, and to see it in front of my eyes, it made me feel –”

“Uncomfortable?” Ennoshita guesses, ducking his neck to catch Tanaka’s gaze.

Tanaka blinks, breaking his stare away from their hands, and he finds that it’s extremely hard not to look at Ennoshita’s eyes – not when they are so mesmerizing, brown, with flecks of gray and yellow.

“Jealous,” Tanaka replies.

It’s Ennoshita’s turn to be at a loss of words. He glares at him surprised, brows raising, lips slowly parting, but no voice coming out.

“I’m trash, aren’t I? I see my best friend’s happiness, and all I can feel is frustration because I can’t just jump at the boy I like freely.”

“What stops you?” Ennoshita asks, his voice careful, hand trembling in Tanaka’s ever so slightly.

“Have you ever been rejected?” Tanaka squeaks, octave higher than planned. “I know it sounds stupid, coming from me, who is being rejected on a daily basis by Kiyoko-san, but this and that’s different. I thought I was fine just loving Kiyoko-san for the rest of my life, but then this thing happened, and now I like this one boy, and he is the softest thing ever, and I would die if he rejected me.”

“Yeah,” Ennoshita says. “This sounds stupid. Coming from you, coming from anyone else. You can’t die from a rejection. You can be pretty down, of course, mope around for a few weeks, but then you get over it and move on.”

“You speak as if you have been rejected. Is there something I don’t know of?”

“Well… not exactly rejected, but almost the same.”

“Someone broke Chikara’s heart!”

“I notice your desperate attempt to change topics, but we are now talking about you.”

“Damn.”

“At least I know why you’ve been acting like a lost puppy for the past few weeks.”

“Did I?” Tanaka asks.

Ennoshita smiles in reply, shaking his head shortly.

“So, what makes you think that you will be rejected by this softest thing of yours?” he asks, nudging Tanaka in the side with his free hand.

Tanaka looks at Ennoshita, heart filling up. It breaks him, keeping him in the dark. It feels like deceit, to talk about his crush with his crush himself. Tanaka is no good at lies, acting and the such – he has always been the one who wore his heart on his sleeve.

Except that Ennoshita made him meek.

“Wouldn’t you?” he asks, voice barely a whisper.

“Wouldn’t I what?” Ennoshita asks, oblivious. “Reject you? Such a great party?”

“You wouldn’t?”

“Well, if you ask like that, I’m no longer sure whether to brush it off or take it seriously.” There’s something painful in how he says it, how his hand tremble in Tanaka’s while he says it, how his eyes falter, gaze cast to the side.

“I’m sorry,” Tanaka says, squeezing his hand. “I don’t intend to make you feel uncomfortable, Chikara.”

“Well…”

“But I really want to hear your reply.”

“What?”

“Would you reject me?”

Ennoshita lets out a sigh, long and pained.

“I won’t. But I would kill you for calling me the softest thing ever.”

“You can kill me anytime,” Tanaka offers, opening up his chest for any imaginary weapon, closing his eyes in surrender.

When the attack comes, it’s fatal. It’s soft yet firm, thin yet plump, simple yet daring. Ennoshita charges in with his lips, pulling Tanaka close by their interlinked hands.

“There,” he says then, letting Tanaka go.

“Wow. That… that was something. You killed me good.”

“Are you dead yet?”

“I think I must be at least dying. And dreaming in delirium. About you kissing me?”

“Just so we are on the same page,” Ennoshita says clearing his throat. “Did you actually confess just now?”

“I think I did. I wanted to.”

“Good then. It would be so weird if I just kissed you and your lover boy was someone else.”

“No, it’s you!” Tanaka exclaims, only to burn up in an extreme blush afterwards.

“Hnn,” Ennoshita says, leaning closer. “So you really deserve that killing.”

This time, Tanaka is ready for the kiss – that not making him any more experienced, but at least he tries his best, leaning into it.

“Dead yet?”

“Could survive a few more strikes.”

“How am I soft?”

“You are. Just. Just accept it.”

“You know, for a moment you really frightened me back there with this whole softest thing ever story. I thought you had a thing for Hinata, and I really didn’t know what would I do with my stupid crush if I had to support you in courting him.”

“You have a crush?”

“Oh my god, Tanaka, forget about me kissing you, got it? Forget it all, you don’t deserve it, you never did, I should’ve just forgot about you back in first year when you broke my heart –”

“I did?!”

“Well. It doesn’t feel too good when you just started developing a crush on this crazy weirdo to see that he is confessing on every occasion to your team’s beautiful manager.”

“Oh, shit, no. I couldn’t. No.”

“Yes, yes you did. You shattered my young heart.”

“Chikara, I’m sorry, if I knew I wouldn’t have–”

“Hush now. That was my stupid ass being all mopey. But did I go up to you to confess? No. I had rather run away and quit club activities altogether.”

“Oooh.”

“Yeah, I know, crazy story, huh? I was a pretty dramatic kid. You know, too many movies,” Ennoshita laughs, entwining his fingers with Tanaka’s and starting to pull him towards the gyms. “We can discuss this later, and talk about what made you finally realize my potential, but for now I think we are late for practice.”

“You’re right,” Tanaka agrees, half sad that Ennoshita stopped kissing him, half happy at the promise of continuation. “I wouldn’t want to make Suga-san wait.”

☆ ☆ ☆ 

“Anyways, how did you know? That Noya and Tsukishima…”

“I kinda walked in on them,” Ennoshita says, pulling up his shoulders in defense, “while they were making out in the club room.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“They were making out, huh.”

“What?”

“I want to do that, too.”

 

 

**Epilogue**

 

 **Day 4:**   ** _Winter_** ☆ **_Green_** ☆ **_College_**

“Oy, Greenhorn Ace!” Ennoshita cheers, slamming Tanaka in the shoulder with his fist. “You were great out there.”

“Thanks, Rookie Captain,” Tanaka jibes back. “You were not half bad yourself.”

Slinging his arm around his boyfriend he continues trotting towards the bus, where, along with a very tired Yacchan, their brand new team is waiting.

“So… you think we could get away with this for a year?” Ennoshita asks him easing into the half-hug.

“Absolutely! If you don’t believe me, ask Vice Captain Kinoshita, I’m sure he agrees with me.”

“Oh, Kinoshita sure has leveled up during the winter break.”

“Yeah, his serves are no joke.”

“Did you see Yamaguchi’s eyes?”

“The question is, was that sparkle meant for a rival, or…?” Tanaka teases, inciting a breathy laughter from Ennoshita.

“Who knows? Either way, I really hope for a year free of drama.”

“Our second year line-up will surely cause you headache, Captain,” Tanaka nudges Ennoshita closer, sniffing his soft, dark hair. “Have I mentioned that I love your shampoo?”

“Nah. Never. Wow, such news,” Ennoshita deadpans, ruffling Tanaka’s short, dirty blond locks. “Not that now that you decided to grow out your hair, you’re not stealing it notoriously.”

“Oh come on. I want to smell like you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now, Ace-kun, would you let me go so we can both mount the bus?”

“Only if you promise that I can sit next to you on the bus.”

“I do.”

“And I can sit next to you during the team meeting?”

“Ok.”

“And I can sit next to you for the rest of our lives?”

“Now, that would need an incredible effort on your end, Tanaka,” Ennoshita says, and he bops his boyfriend’s forehead before detangling from their hug. He mounts the first steps on the bus, leaning back down to whisper into Tanaka’s ear. “I plan to spend the next few years sitting in lecture halls. If you really want me to promise that I’ll let you sit next to me, what about you promising me that you’ll get into the same college as me?”

“Aye, Captain!”


End file.
